The meeting had utterly exhausted me. Not only had it gone on for so long that they needed to feed us twice, but everyone had multiple questions for me. Which was to be expected, of course; the other leaders of First Cell weren’t going into this without as much information as they could gather. Whoever else needed to listen to the recording made was going to have their work cut out for them.

  Once it was over, I wasn’t the only one feeling lethargic. Despite the hours we spent locked in a room together, only Teladora and Justisius seemed energized by it, and she actually had the energy to practically bounce out of the room. From what I’ve seen of her, that didn’t seem all too unusual for the Gnome.

  The perks of being extroverts, I supposed.

  When I learned that Justisius still had more meetings to deal with, I received instructions on how to join the rest of my team and got out of there as fast as I could. The barracks had been set up opposite where we portaled in, and I started the long trek through town.

  Port St. Grandus was much busier now than it had been when we arrived. Even worse, it was chaotic. It was clear that there were still growing pains since the town hadn’t been built with this much traffic in mind.

  I was used to cities, but I had to take extra care not to be trampled underfoot. It wasn’t as though people were going out of their way to be assholes to the small of stature, we were just harder to spot and everyone was in a hurry.

  Things opened up once I made it to the barracks set up along the road into the port. Many of the trees had been cut down for space and lumber and the buildings, while hastily constructed, were at least lined up in several neat rows. Finding mine was easy enough with the directions I had been given. The sound of laughter came from inside, and I was glad that they were at least enjoying themselves.

  I pushed my way through the cloth door that came standard and looked around. The building was a bit on the smaller size and had been meant for one of the special operations teams, so there was room enough for eight to sleep with a small kitchen. The smell of stew was thick in the air, but I was still full from the second meal we had eaten during the meeting.

  Shrugging off my jacket to place on a chair near the door, my eyes didn’t leave the newcomers as an awkward hush fell over the room. Ferrisdae and Dalsarel glanced at them while Tabitha gave the man a pointed look. She absolutely could have said something to relieve the sudden tension, but refrained from doing so.

  Moose, who they had to move beds to make room for, nodded in my general direction. He hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I saw him. Or, perhaps his antlers were a little bit bigger. That might have been my imagination, though.

  Cojisto waved. He had a plain, white and brown surcoat over his leather armor, which no longer exposed most of his chest. His hair had grown out some, becoming a red, shaggy mop on his head, and a conflicted look appeared on his face.

  “Hey, Badger,” he greeted without any of his usual energy.

  “No,” I said immediately, scowling at their presence here.

  Frustration welled up inside of me and shifted towards anger. I might have been expecting them, but I was in no mood for any of the man’s shenanigans, especially after they had gone months with no communication whatsoever.

  Cojisto tilted his head. “No to… the hello?” he asked, clearly confused.

  “To you and Moose suddenly showing up,” I answered in no uncertain terms. “I get it. You got your ass kicked by a wizard. It happens. No one out there wins every fight they’re a part of, and they certainly don’t throw a fit and walk away from everything because of it. You weren’t supposed to disappear only to slink back at the last moment.”

  “Badger,” Ferrisdae said, some heat in her voice. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

  I fixed a glare at her, and it must have been a good one because she physically recoiled. “Am I supposed to be thankful that they appeared after months of being gone?” I challenged, crossing my arms. “No letters, no notes, no calls, or communication of any kind. Cojisto clearly had the option because he made sure to get on his Sending Stone to tell you what he was going to do. Instead, they go gallivanting off to who knows where and show up at the last minute! I feel like, if anything, I’m not being harsh enough.”

  “Still,” she replied weakly.

  “Still nothing,” I scoffed. “We are about to go into a war zone. What we need are reliable team members. This isn’t some walk in the park where everything is going to go our way. Lives are on the line here—make no mistake that people are going to die out there—and our job is more important that most. I won’t have someone at my side that I can’t trust.” I turned, leveling that glare at Cojisto himself. “And your disappearing act has shown me that I can’t trust you.”

  He took a breath and nodded. “You’re right.”

  I opened my mouth to retort, but nothing came out. Those hadn’t been the words that I was expecting, and I took a quick glance at Tabitha to see if I was perhaps overreacting due to my bad mood. She was still looking at Cojisto.

  “Of course I am,” I replied.

  “There’s a lot of excuses we could make about why we didn’t send any word back other than to Ferry, and we are sorry. We just thought you’d rather not hear from us. You’ve always kept us at arm’s length, Badger.”

  “Yes, but that didn’t mean you have to worry everyone else,” I said. Cojisto arched an eyebrow at me, and I sighed. “It wouldn’t have killed you to pick up your Sending Stone and call every once in a while.”

  “We don’t actually have one of our own,” he admitted sheepishly, though I noticed an odd flinch at my choice of words. “Ferry gave us the pattern to call her, but after the fight we had to borrow one from the Consortium.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Then it wouldn’t have killed you to borrow another one,” I scoffed. He flinched again, looking away. “As easy as you come and go into other’s adventuring parties? I find it hard to believe you didn’t have access to at least one during the months you’d been gone.”

  Cojisto fell silent, staring at one of the beds as he gathered himself. This was unusual for him, and it was clear that his fight with Ulrich had taken its toll on him. All this attitude change was doing was reinforcing the thought that he probably couldn’t fight at our side any more.

  “Do you mind if we talk outside?” he requested, standing up from the bed he had been sitting on. “You, me, and Moose.”

  “I just got out of a long, long meeting where there was nothing to do but talk, so I’d really rather not,” I said.

  “Would you like to eat first?” he offered. “We’ve got time. Don’t mind waiting.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Cojisto gave me a sad smile. “Please? Just a little bit of your time. If you don’t care for what we have to say, then we’ll be out of your hair.”

  I scowled at that, looked up at the ceiling, and closed my eyes. Inhaling deeply, I let it all out the moment my lungs were full. The anger I felt diminished, though I wasn’t ready to let go of it just yet. With a sigh, I motioned for them to follow me and left the building. They scrambled to follow, and I knew Moose was going to have to be careful when leaving thanks to his antlers.

  They caught up with me quickly as I headed to the path next to the shoreline and away from Port St. Grandus. There were plenty of people on the beaches even if they were generally too rocky to be comfortable. Most of them didn’t care, spending as much time with their family, friends, and comrades as they could before we would all have to get on boats.

  Moose and Cojisto walked behind me and said nothing. Once we made it far enough to have some privacy, I led them onto a relatively flat rock jutting out of the water. The tide was low and it was relatively dry aside from a few puddles. I stared out over the gentle waves as the adventurers flanked me on either side.

  “You wanted to talk,” I said flatly, my anger further abated by the walk and scenery.

  “Yeah,” the man agreed, staring off at the horizon. Moose snorted, and he nodded. “Before we get into things, we’d like to be on the same page. What’d they tell you about our fight with Ulrich?”

  “Not much,” I answered with a frown. “Dalsarel didn’t say much other than she thought you were going to die. She said he placed his hand against your chest at the end of the fight, and you were thrown back against a brick wall. Ulrich thought it was good that Moose knew healing magic because he was pretty sure you weren’t going to get back up again without it.”

  That caused them both to snap their gazes on me. “You talked to him?”

  “In the Bottom’s Up. He showed up once I did, and we had a discussion,” I replied with a wave of my hand. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is you and Moose. You wanted to talk to me alone, and you’re running out of time.”

  The duo shared a glance before Cojisto nodded. “You were right, I did get my ass kicked, but I didn’t disappear because I was scared. We left because I had to get my head straight. I had a lot of things to work through after the aftermath of the fight.”

  “You didn’t have to leave to do that,” I retorted. “You had friends here. People who care about you. I imagine Ferrisdae would have been able to help with the process and Tabs and I both have extensive experience with… failing as adventurers.”

  “I’m surprised you’d offer your experiences up like that,” he claimed.

  Frowning, I crossed my arms. “What? You know Reliable Rhodes’ record. Things weren’t always sunshine and rainbows.”

  “No, I mean I’m surprised to learn you care enough that you would talk about your past like that. Like I said, you always kept us at arm’s length.”

  “I disagree, I always kept you at a distance that I felt comfortable with given our working relationship,” I corrected. “But I had never failed to answer any of your questions even when I was explaining something like ritual circles to Moose, or kept you in the loop with what was happening to Ferrisdae and what would happen after we fought Razorbeak, or anything.”

  “Back when I asked you if you could tolerate me, you scoffed and changed the subject,” Cojisto said, seemingly confused.

  “So? I do that to everyone and you were clearly amused by my reaction,” I scoffed. “You’ve met my family, for Cheroske’s sake. I don’t think I need to spell it out any more than I already have.”

  Moose and Cojisto shared a glance but I didn’t look away from the ocean. Whatever best friend telepathy was going through their head was going to be a mystery to me.

  The man cleared his throat. “Well, that’s certainly eye-opening, Badger, but I still say that we needed to disappear for a bit,” he said, both gentle and firm. His tone made me turn to regard him. This wasn’t the boisterous man I knew anymore. “Get away from it all. I had to come to grips with a few things. Moose, of course, helped. He’s the best friend a guy could ask for.”

  The healer snorted, and Cojisto chuckled.

  “Yeah, you can say that again, buddy.”

  “Alright, so how about we get to the point,” I told him as I looked back over the ocean.

  “Ulrich was the biggest threat we had ever faced,” he said as he started taking off his surcoat. “After seeing him in action, I have no doubt that he was the most powerful combatant that we’d seen. Not just magic, but in terms of experience as well. We went in before we knew that. He was the enemy and we had lives to save, so we were excited. I mean, we helped take on the Cult of Chaos, so what was one more guy?”

  Moose stomped on the rock twice.

  Cojisto nodded. “We quickly realized just how out of our depth we were. It took him no time at all to force the three of us onto the back foot and take control of the flow of combat. We’ve been replaying it through our heads over and over again since then, and it was very clear that he was toying with us. Keeping him entertained until the next big threat came up.”

  “You were helpless,” I stated.

  “Worse than that,” he sighed as he tossed his surcoat over Moose’s back and started removing his leather chestplate. I arched an eyebrow at him, not sure where this was going. “Badger, he could have ended the fight whenever he wanted. He was throwing around low-level spells for his own amusement, and I didn’t survive the fight.”

  I scowled but decided to take his words at face value. Tapping into my goddess’ power, I gave him and Moose a good look over, but neither of them were deemed evil by her definition. “Clearly you did, otherwise you’d be some kind of…”

  Words failed me as Cojisto pulled up his undershirt and showed me his bare chest. A handprint had been burnt onto his chest, though it wasn’t complete. His armor had protected his heart and the fingertips were missing. Spreading outward from the mark were burns that I recognized as having been made from lightning, though those were supposed to fade within days.

  “There’s a reason why everyone was surprised that I survived the fight with Ulrich, Badger,” the man said, uncharacteristically quiet. “It’s because I didn’t. He killed me, and I still have the brand to prove it.”